The Rape Of Ani Continues

[bellthecat]

The Turks had broken open a gaping hole in the floor of the chapel, revealing a vaulted crypt beneath. In that crypt two labourers were digging - crunching human bones underfoot as they casually tossed up to the surface shovelfulls of material - rubble, soil, human bones, pottery, and other artifacts. This could be a typical scene of illicit digging for treasure in any abandoned Armenian church in Turkey. But it was not. This was an archeological excavation, Turkish style, in one of the best known Armenian monuments - the narthex chapel of the early 13th century church of Tigran Honents at Ani.

 

On the surface an "archaeologist" was present - but he was more interested in showing one of his three female assistants (none of which looked to be out of their teens) how to record a piece of carving that pay attention to what the labourers were doing. In any other country he would be down in the crypt, but Turkish archaeologists do not like to get their hands dirty by doing actual digging - that is beneath their professional dignity.

 

The pile of rubble grew bigger and the "archaeologist" came over to pick out anything he found interesting. Bones were thrown onto one pile, pottery onto another. The pıle of dislocated bones looked to be from at least 10 skeletons. Occasionaly the labourers would throwup single items. A large pıece of wood was thrown up - it split into two on landing. One of the assistants picked up the two bits and put it into a plastic bag, splıtting another piece off in the process. Perhaps it was a part of a coffin - who knows sınce its context was not recorded. A large piece of textile was thrown up - for Ani a thing of great rarity. The same assistant picked it up by one end - holding it at arms length as if it were a dead animal. It was crushed up and popped into another plastic bag. The "archaeologist", seeing this and revealing at least some training, uncrushed it a little and put some air into the bag before sealing it with a knot.

 

Once the cursory inspection was completed the debris, still thick with bones and pottery, was loaded onto a wheelbarrow and taken a few meters to the edge of a slope and then tipped over - onto the remains of walls that fell in the 1988 earthquake.

 

Seeing enough, I left the church to view the rest of the "excavations".

 

...to be continued.

[Arpa]

Dear Bell, welcome... back.

You don't reveal the source of the article. Do we understand this is a first person eyewitness account, namely yours?

Your subject topic is ironic at best, or oxymoronic as there is no such thing as "Turkish Archeology", the reason why they have such contempt of anything old in Anatolia since none is Turkish.

This is not the first time they have done this, I saw it on TV whwn a so called Turkish archeologist held up stone tablet that was clearly inscribed in Armenian that I could readily read, looking into the camera he said that it was "an ancient exotic sdript that had not yet been deciphered". His European comapnions looked on like sheep, or perhaps like wolves and said nothing.

 

Where is UN and UNESCO? Aren't they supposed to protect it?

 

No matter who says what, with or without the UN, "miyayn zenqov ka hayun prkutyun/prkanq".

 

Should we remind them of Aghdam? Where and what is/was Aghdam!!!

:nuke:

[Arpa]

Steve, with your indulgence and others' patience, I will point to the following so that perhaps we may avoid repeating things over again.

 

And, yes to many who asked. The translation, as poor as may be, is mine. :)

 

http://www.armenians.com/forum/index.php?s...?showtopic=5288

[bellthecat]

Yes Arpa - it is an eyewitess account. Rest will follow shortly (when I get the time to write it since I am travelling in those parts now).

[bellthecat]

Part Two

 

The church of Tigran Honents lies half way down the ravine that now forms the border between Turkey and Armenia, while most of the ruined city lies on the flat plateau above. I walked back up the slope towards the 10th century cathedral - the largest of Ani’s many churches. At the top, a tractor pulling a trailer full of earth and rubble had stopped at the edge of the plateau and a group of labourers were busy shovelling that earth and rubble down the slope. Based on the amount of debris already covering the slope, there had been many dozens of similar loads recently deposited there. All that debris was archaeological “spoil” - the soil and rubble that always results from an excavation. Archaeologists are normally very careful when disposing of such material, but this has never been the case with the excavations at Ani, headed by a Turkish archaeologist named Beyhan Karamagarali. The spoil is simply dumped elsewhere within Ani and is spread over unexcavated areas, contaminating that ground for future archaeologists. Over the last decade Karamagarali has contaminated a large part of the city – I estimate at least 5 percent of its area – by this indiscriminate dumping. However, her tips are always useful places to find interesting artefacts since the spoil is never properly sifted.

 

Walking closer to the cathedral, I observed that an excavation was taking place below its eastern wall. However, I knew this to be a French excavation. I would return there later in the day, but before that I wanted to go directly to the source of all that debris.

 

Along a section of the line of the roadway that once ran through the middle of Ani about 25 labourers were working away furiously with shovels and pickaxes. Five or six students were casually supervising the work; a single woman was even more casually supervised them. It was just like the Tigran Honentz excavation, but on a larger scale. Was I perhaps in the presence of the elusive Karamagarali? Unfortunately not – the elderly Karamagarali was feeling the heat, it seems, and had returned to the nearby town of Kars for the afternoon.

 

From the surrounding soil level the labourers had dug vertically down to a depth of between two and three meters, down to the original floor level of the rows of shops that had once lined the street. They worked in a sort of relay that ended in the shovelling of the spoil onto a trailer. Occasionally the students would remove bits of pottery or other artefacts from the spoil and toss them onto the nearest pile of such objects. Nothing at all was being recorded. Nothing was written down, or photographed, or measured before it was removed. Within one room several workers were digging straight through a later floor level to reach the original one. None of this could be called an archaeological excavation. It was simply the clearing of debris and fallen masonry that had accumulated over the buildings in order to expose any surviving foundations, with the side effect of destroying all material that modern archaeologists would seek to carefully record and study.

 

I walked further along the excavated street, passing buildings that had been “excavated” by Karamagarali in previous years; already, large sections of the uncovered walls had started to collapse.

 

I returned to the cathedral to see what the French were doing...

 

 

 

(Part Three may be some considerable time in arriving. I need time and distance to decide on the most appropriate way of describing the French "activities" at Ani.)

[Azat]

Thank you steve. Very interesting. Do you have pictures and are you going to put them on Virtual Ani?

[bellthecat]

No pictures of Ani - photography is banned. Was banned last year as well, but as long as you were discrete you could snap away. Now there are soldiers at the entrance that search your bags. Photography is not banned for the "archeologists" though - they have cameras, they just chose not to record anything!

 

There will be lots more pics on VirtualAni - its the writing the text that is the pain though, especially if any info about a building is held in obscure books in foreign languages. Or maybe there is no info available at all. Maybe I should start to just post the photos by themself, give myself an easy time for a while (I need it).

[Harut]

http://www.azg.am/start.pl?lang=AR&num=2003082901

[bellthecat]

http://www.azg.am/start.pl?lang=AR&num=2003082901

What does it say? (And why is in not in the English version of the website?)

[Harut]

honestly, i didn't read the entire article, but it is eyewitness account of the recent excavations at Ani and Kars. i browsed through and it was also talking about a foreigner. i thought that might be you.

[Armen]

Bellthecat,

 

The web-site of Azg Daily says that a combined group of Armenian archeologists from Shirak center of Armenian studies and Armenian Agency fro Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments led by Larisa Eganian are conducting an archeological excavation of a site on the bank of the Akhourian river in front of Horomos complex which they believe was a suburb of Ani.

 

Couldn't find any better place to post this...

[bellthecat]

conducting an archeological excavation of a site on the bank of the Akhourian river in front of Horomos complex which they believe was a suburb of Ani.

They had better be quick - before it is gone. Armenia, not content with having four stone quarries opposite Ani, last year opened a fifth quarry directly opposite Horomos.